


Harmless

by T Verano (t_verano)



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Angst, Community: sentinel_thurs, Gen, Horror, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 22:20:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21126164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_verano/pseuds/T%20Verano
Summary: [i'm thinking a summary might be kind of spoilery here, so, well... There are some notes at the beginning, about how this is HORROR FIC! BEWARE!, but otherwise I'm just going to forget that summaries are a thing, for now. As it says in those notes,caveat emptor.]





	Harmless

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sentinel Thursday challenge 638, "harmless"
> 
> So, hey. Halloween. I've always wanted to write something for Spook-Me , but never seem to do it. Then this prompt comes along, and abracadabra! this not-quite-ready-for-Spook-Me-fic happens.
> 
> BUT! WARNING! This is horror fic. I don't know if it's actually horrifying, having never tried writing horror fic before, but the thing is, I give you no kittens or puppies or unicorns here. It's not graphic, but this is not feel-good stuff, okay? _Seriously _not. Caveat emptor.

It was a joke, almost. Not that it was a _game _or anything, but it was totally harmless. And kind of a trip, really, even if it was just research. 

Research they were having a little fun with. Like it said on Kathy's favorite t-shirt: _It's all fun and games until..._

Well, until what? 

But that's the whole point, isn't it?

****************************

Lights have been on in the loft all day, combating the grayness of the heavy cloud cover outside. The kitchen light. Two lamps in the living room. The light in the bathroom hallway. The upstairs loft has been left to its own shadowy devices, but the lamp lying on the floor beside Blair's bed is casting a cozy, if oddly-angled, glow in his bedroom.

There's no sign of Jim; his jacket's not on the hook by the front door and his gun's not in the dresser drawer where he keeps it when he's home. Blair's coat _is _on its hook beside the door but he's nowhere to be seen, either. 

From time to time, whispers of sound break the lamp-lit stillness. Rustles. Faint scraping sounds. A series of clicks. Something high-pitched, that might be an insect, or might not.

****************************

"Catch." Kathy tosses the half-full bag of Doritos at Cole. He doesn't look away from her tiny portable TV, just stays sprawled out on her bed and lets the bag land on his chest. One of his hands snakes into the bag on autopilot and comes out with a clump of mostly broken chips while the other hand manages his Mountain Dew. On the TV screen miniature lightsabers flicker and dance as the Empire strikes back.

Neither Kathy nor Jess is paying any attention to Han and Leia and Luke. They're looking at the props they'd arranged so meticulously earlier this afternoon, which are still claiming a chunk of the floor in the middle of Kathy's dorm room.

Kathy's grinning. "I can't wait to see the look on his face tomorrow when we tell him about this," she says, "Applied cultural anthropology from a Mayan subculture, animatism -- I _know _we'll get extra credit for this. And he's so cute when he gets excited about stuff." She looks gleeful. 

Jess, on the other hand, looks uneasy. "But what if he gets mad? I mean, we used him as the focus."

Kathy scoffs. "He won't be mad. We had to have _somebody _as a focus, didn't we? And we did a shitload of research -- he's _so _going to be impressed; some of the stuff we dug up was really obscure. Anyway, we were respectful, weren't we? Not making fun or anything." She wrinkles her nose. "Well, not _really _making fun. Just, like, going native a little."

"Yeah, maybe." Jess's eyes seem troubled as her gaze skims over the unlikely assortment of items the three of them had collected for the ritual. 

Kathy groans. "Don't be such a worrywart, Jess. It was legit research, and anyway, it's too late to get cold feet _now. _It'll be totally cool, just wait and see." 

"I hope you're right," Jess says. Her gaze stalls on the t-shirt-covered lump in the middle of the floor, and she crosses her arms over her chest and swallows. It's a small lump, barely noticeable under the crumpled body of the t-shirt, but she can't seem to look away from it. "Cole," she says, her words coming out a little fast, "you're taking that thing back _today, _right?"

"Huh?" Cole hits the pause button on the VCR's remote and slides his eyes down to where Jess's chin is pointing. "You threw a _t-shirt _ on top of it? C'mon, guys; I already told you Professor Aguirre will shit a brick if there's so much as a hair out of place."

Kathy rolls her eyes. "It's _fine. _How's he going to notice anything, anyway? The collection's so big you could probably take it back with a wing missing and he wouldn't catch on for years."

"Wrong," Cole says, frowning. He sits up from his sprawl, and the bag of Doritos slides down off the bed and hits the floor, scattering orange Dorito remnants on the crappy carpet. "The Central American specimens are his babies. He talks to them. Hell, he even _sings _to them when he thinks nobody's around. If he hadn't gone off to his conference in KC, there's no way I would have been able to sneak this thing out of there for us to use."

"Sings to them? No way. Freak-_y._" Kathy shudders theatrically. "Your professor's been sniffing too much formaldehyde, if formaldehyde's what you use in taxider--" she breaks off as she looks at the rumpled t-shirt more closely. "Jess! That's my favorite tee -- now I have to throw it away! You _know _it's my favorite tee, why didn't you grab something else instead?"

Cole sighs. "Better question: why did you cover it up in the first place?" he says, cutting over Jess's defensive apology. "It's not all that gross."

"It's _totally _gross," Kathy says, and Jess nods fervently in agreement. 

Cole scratches the side of his head and yawns. "Whatever," he says with a shrug as he looks away from the crumpled t-shirt to stare mournfully at his empty can of Dew.

****************************

A small red light glows unwaveringly at the base of the coffeepot. The carafe is still a quarter full, but the level's been inching its way down for hours, and the kitchen is beginning to hold the overcooked-coffee aroma common to break rooms and convenience stores everywhere.

The gray afternoon has shifted into an even grayer dusk, and the pools of lamplight throughout the loft are gaining strength against the darkening world outside the windows. The lamplight embraces the morning's dishes still in the drying rack, waiting to be put away. It embraces the perfectly aligned sofa cushions, undisturbed since Jim straightened up last night before going to bed. Embraces the open door of Blair's room and eases inside.

Inside, to meet the light from the lamp lying toppled onto the floor beside Blair's bed, the light that's spilling in skewed circles from the top and bottom of the shade, spilling in a jagged line from a tear in the shade itself. That light pours over the shards of the mug and the brown scum of mostly-dried coffee near the baseboard. It flows over the wooden box splintered open on the rug in front of the dresser, over the scattered coins and keys and hair ties. It reflects in the cracked glass of the dresser mirror; skims over the tangled bedding half pulled from the futon, the pillows strewn around the room, the curtain dangling from its broken rod.

Books and notebooks lie in backlit disarray on the floor, and the light slides over their broken bindings and torn pages to slip through the closet's half-open door. 

A jumbled pile of clothing studded with hangers confronts it on the threshold. It falters, finally, at the far edge of the haphazard pile, defeated before it can reach farther into the closet. 

Something moves in the darkest corner of the closet, and a whisper of sound breaks the silence. A rustle. Another rustle. A series of chittering clicks.

****************************

It's the tail end of dusk when Jim unlocks the door and steps inside the loft with a tired sigh that carries more than a little exasperation. He'd barely hit the lobby before he realized that the coffee sludge he was smelling came from Simon's uncle's special Kenyan blend, which meant it came from Blair forgetting to turn the coffeepot off. Again.

The accusing red light of the neglected coffeepot meets his eye as he turns from the door, ready to shrug out of his jacket, and he cuts loose with a "Sandburg" that's loud enough to do a decent job of expressing his annoyance --

And freezes. There's someone... no, _something _else in the loft. Someone -- some _thing _\-- that isn't Blair.

The air. There's the scent of something wrong in the air, underneath the smell of burnt coffee. Something that doesn't belong. Something he can't identify.

Or can he? 

_\-- Nights in the jungle. The scents, the sounds. The life. The creatures that walk and fly and hunt in the darkness. Hiding from the light... --_

The scent. The sounds.

Jim shakes his head sharply. This isn't a memory; it's not Incacha walking beside him in the darkness, sharing more of his world with Jim. This is here and now. In the loft. 

The sounds of the creatures of the night. High-pitched chitters. Clicks. Faint rustling. An even fainter drumming. Fast. Frantically fast.

And not drumming. A heartbeat. 

_Something's _frantically fast heartbeat.

Coming from Blair's room. 

The door is open. Two silent steps -- gun raised, the safety off -- and a sliver of the room becomes visible. 

A sliver of the wreckage. 

Time stops. Starts again, slower, more fluid.

Another silent step forward, gun sighted straight ahead, moving towards the scent, the sounds, the destruction. To what's happened. To whatever's in there. To whatever Jim needs to do next. 

_Fear is not the enemy. What you do with the fear is what matters._

Another step and another. The gun is steady in his hands.

He pauses at the side of the open door. Takes in a deep, soundless breath. Tactical entry, coming in fast and low, eyes everywhere, clearing the room, evaluating the pattern of damage --

The pattern of damage. 

_What you do with the fear is what matters._

Jim crouches beside the bed, gun pointed unwaveringly at the closet. Underneath his feet is a scuff mark. There are more scuff marks, oddly shaped, oddly spaced, in front of him. Leading to the closet.

The closet with the half-open door. Where the sounds have been coming from. Where the scent is strongest. Where something's hiding.

Where Blair has to be. If he's here.

If he's here, he isn't alive anymore. The only human heartbeat in this room is coming from Jim. 

_What you do with the fear..._

Jim stands up slowly, straightening inch by inch. Breathes. Eases to the side, aiming for a better sightline past that half-open door.

The rustling increases. 

Jim keeps moving. Keeps breathing. 

Digs deeper. Mission mode: You do whatever's necessary and only what's necessary. You strip away everything that doesn't help you achieve the objective. That doesn't help you survive. 

Whatever kind of mission, whatever kind of battle, this turns out to be. 

He keeps moving. The shadows in the closet won't protect whatever's in there; he just needs a better angle to --

\-- see.

****************************

It twists away. Tries to twist away.

There's nowhere to go. No room to move. Its toes are wrapped around the metal rod just below the high shelf, its ears are brushing the tops of the shoes on the floor, and its right side is wedged against the closet wall.

It twists its face away. Clicks its teeth together in a chittering call. Quivers.

****************************

_\-- Small forms flitting rapidly through the midnight jungle; hunting, always hunting. The entrance to a cave at dusk, the air alive with a chittering exodus. Daylight bright outside the caves, while inside the ceilings and walls are dark with tiny massed bodies clinging somnolently to every possible perch. Chhiñi..._

Chhiñi.

_No._

Reality narrows to the breath moving quickly in and out of Jim's lungs and to the gun in his hand, aimed steadily at... that.

The thing. Living thing. Creature. In Blair's closet.

"_What did you do with Sandburg._" His snarled demand is pure reflex. Pointless. There's no chance in hell of an answer, not from _that._

There's no blood. No body. No possible expla--

The thing turns its head towards Jim. Wide ears standing out from its face. Wide, smashed-looking snout of a nose. Two teeth curved like fangs. Teeth that _are _fangs. Designed to serve a creature that lives solely on blood.

Its wing moves a little, wrapping more closely around its impossibly man-sized body. The movement makes the ridge of a long, thin finger bone more visible underneath the skin of the wing it frames, brings the hooked thumb at the end of the finger into sight.

_Chhiñi._

"Where is he," Jim says. Growls. He says it out loud because he goddamn needs to hear a human voice right now, even if it's just his own, but he doesn't have an answer to give himself. 

The bat clicks its teeth together, staring at Jim. Staring directly at him. At his eyes. Almost like it's trying to answer Jim's question. 

By some trick of the shadows -- of Jim's mind -- it looks almost _humanly_ desperate. Pleading.

And terrified. 

"Join the club," Jim says to it, on a forced-out breath.

_No body, no blood. Start there._

He changes to a one-handed grip on his gun and digs the mobile phone out of his jacket pocket. Get backup, whatever the hell kind of backup exists for whatever the hell this is. Track down Blair. Wherever the hell he is. Check himself into psychiatric care.

Not necessarily in that order.

He punches in the first digit, the second --

The bat moves. Towards Jim. 

Its teeth are clicking together in staccato bursts, and a distant part of Jim's mind notes that it's moving oddly, almost like it doesn't really _know _how to move; too awkward, too clumsy, for such an agile creature.

The less distant part of Jim's brain doesn't give a fuck. He feels a wall at his back, the wall farthest from a way out. He doesn't remember getting here. 

His phone's gone. Knocked onto the floor by the edge of a clumsily unfolding wing. 

The bat's still moving. Half walking -- somehow -- half dragging itself across the floor, over the torn books and the scattered pillows, its wings now furled.

Still moving. Chittering. Mouth open, teeth clacking at Jim.

_What you do with the fear is what matters._

Jim's finger tightens on the trigger.

****************************

_It's all fun and games until..._

Until it isn't, anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. _Chhiñi_ is one of the Quechua words for bat, at least as far as I could get Google to take me.
> 
> 2\. The Mayans had a bat deity named Camazotz, a death god believed to be inspired by vampire bats.
> 
> 3\. Vampire bats live in Central and South America. And Wikipedia says this: "While most other bats have almost completely lost the ability to maneuver on land, vampire bats are an exception. They can run using a unique, bounding gait in which the forelimbs are used instead of the hindlimbs to propel forward, as the wings are much more powerful than the legs..." It can also leap. And it doesn't actually suck blood, but uses its fangs to pierce skin, then laps the blood up. Its victims often don't even notice, and a bat takes so little blood it can return to the same animal night after night. 
> 
> 4\. The heart of a vampire bat can beat up to 800 times a minute.
> 
> 5\. Different species of bats apparently have different scents, based on what they eat, according to a bat website that got kind of poetic describing them. Vampire bats weren't described, but since their diet is entirely blood... well, maybe they're not the Chanel No. 5 of the bat world.
> 
> 6\. It's very hard to describe bat sounds (as experienced via YouTube). :-) One particular video, though, almost broke my heart: "Juvenile vampire bat making isolation calls" (or something like that). It clearly (and audibly) showed the bat clicking its teeth together, and just...well. It looked lonely.
> 
> Apparently bats give me feels, okay? They look like they need sympathy. Empathy. It's not their fault they're bats...


End file.
